The music within is awful. An infernal racket of screeched vocals and underproduced instruments that seem intended to be a grating experience for the listener.

Then again, this is a quasi-black project and all of those above statements which could easily be taken as negatives are, in fact, positives.

Terzij De Horde are a Dutch five piece that were formerly roaming the low country, assaulting people at random as Liar Liar Cross On Fire. The band is, apparently, "post-Black", which seems to be largely black metal with some doom and perhaps even traces of screaming hardcore influence. And who knows what else? "The Roots Of Doomsday Anxiety", one of tracks on this four song EP, A Rage Of Rapture Against The Dying Of The Light was previously found on a LLCOF demo. This time it is slightly beefed up, and closes out with what is likely some Euro folk instrument I've never heard of but sounds suspiciously like a banjo. ("Did you just get bluegrass in my screaming post-black?")

The band basically weave between two speeds:

First gear, slow, in which they tend to let dissonant chords ring sickly out or engage in single note melodies designed for maximum tension while the bass occasionally rumbles along a little foray of it's own.

Forget 2nd through 5th gears as they just skip to an overdrive gear in which the band blast away with pounding drums and tremolo riffing. One of their special tricks is while cruising away the guitarist slides dissonant chords further up the guitar neck, which creates an almost nauseating result akin to gobbling paranoia-inducing psychedelics and engaging a high speed car chase. This is particularly the case in the closing 30 seconds of "Prometheans." Basically, the end of that song is the black metal sonic cousin to that creepy boat ride in the original Willy Wonka movie*. (Yes, the danger must be growing/For the rowers keep on rowing/And they're certainly not showing/Any signs that they are slowing!)

The truly ghastly howled and screeched vocals just add further to the malefic sonic package, doing noting positive whatsoever to lighten up the mood... instead they add another level of unease to the overall mood. If anything the shrieks are perhaps even more horrific while the band drunkenly stumble along at a 1st gear crawl.

A lot of seeming negative and disparaging remarks have been tossed around this review, but, as stated above, the intent of this band seems to be to create one harsh and hellish landscape. And in that context, I believe negativity was what they were aiming for - and have succeeded in nailing.

(* self-pwning review hijack... if you thought the original was creepy, it's even more bizarre in reverse. )

Well, this was a very, uh, out of the ordinary review. Not even talking about the rather disturbing videos.

Something tells me I only understood half of what you were trying to get across. So let me know what kind of beer you were having during the writing process, so I pick up a case when I go shopping for this album, so I can try to figure out what in the fuck you are talking about.

Well, this was a very, uh, out of the ordinary review. Not even talking about the rather disturbing videos.

Something tells me I only understood half of what you were trying to get across. So let me know what kind of beer you were having during the writing process, so I pick up a case when I go shopping for this album, so I can try to figure out what in the fuck you are talking about.

amusingly, i think i had had a couple beers when i wrote the opening two lines and devised the overall premise for the review - the fact the band plays a grating unpleasant album, but then that is the purpose of their style of music. (see also Blut Aus NordMORT and even Ulver's Nattens Madrigal in so far as production goes)

i was dead sober when writing the rest the following day.*

if you visit their myspace page (to which it seems this review is now linked) and click on Prometheans on the player, you'll pretty much get the entirety of what i wrote. for some reason the closing 30s of that reminded me of a bad trip, black-metal stylee, which of course immediately brought that "what is this? a freak out?" scene to mind. both have that almost nauseating speed and slightly overwhelming stimuli... in this instance, replacing creepy images with just creepy chords ever accelerating.

and, to keep the Wonka references going, you still don't get the review after listening to it (both sober and ftunk) here is my response:

* i will cop to being ftunk off of New Belgium's "Ranger IPA" (6.5%) and Tucson's own Nimbus Brewery's "Monkeyshines" (8.2%) when writing my Exodus review last week.

This EP is good, not "awesome" stuff, but still quite enjoyable, something I could listen many times. I think there's a lot of space for improvement, but seems like they are in the right way. Maybe a proper debut album will tell if they are up to the challenge.